


The Definition of...

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: The Lone Wolf [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, He tried!, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Parental Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Poor Jack Dalton (Macgyver 2016), Pre-Series, Self Deprecation on Jack's behalf, all hurt and no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: The night that Elwood came around to Diane's home, and the ripples of destruction that came from it after he met Jack Dalton.
Relationships: Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) & Riley Davis, Jack Dalton/Diane Davis (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: The Lone Wolf [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870918
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	The Definition of...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [12percentplan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/12percentplan/gifts).



> 12percentplan came up with the idea and a few of the lines in a discussion about the night that Jack beat up Elwood. I ran with it. 
> 
> WARNING: for mentions and some showing of domestic abuse and reference to child abuse

Between the progression of his relationship with Diane and his transition into half-moving into her home--though while still keeping a dingy motel room as a back-up in the event of a catastrophic break up, as tends to happen when he gets _too_ emotionally involved (or in the event that his day at the office would be a little more...physically rough than most and needed to lay low while he healed)--and still fresh wound of his father’s passing, Jack realizes that he’s fallen into an almost...domestic bliss that he always witnessed in his father, but never quite understood.

It reminds him of his first day of hard labor, and the reward of an ice cold drink afterwards. The very definition of relaxation. As a young boy, he had thought his father a little lazy for just constantly stretching out on a tattered armchair, beer in one hand, television remote in the other. Dressed in a pair of stained jeans and a white tank top--a look he would of course, come to admire seeing on the big screen as donned by Bruce Willis running around a skyscraper with no shoes. Not a desire in the world to get up, asking Jack to do menial things like fetching the paper for him, taking the dog for a walk--even so far as asking him to grab him something just out of arm’s reach. 

Now, after chasing down three criminals down a narrow hallway, bouncing like a pinball off of the walls and landing punches like some sort of daredevil, he understood. 

He still thinks his father lazy for his decisions to enlist Jack in playing a never-ending game of fetch, but understands nonetheless, the desire to just...melt. Unwind the tense knots in his muscles. Enjoy the mundane. 

Enjoy the company of a woman and her daughter, who somehow haven’t gotten sick of them yet. 

Two women he would do _anything_ for. 

He has one in each arm as they watch television together, having just gone out for pizza and ice cream and enjoying the night coming before the weekend ahead--Riley, especially, seemed to be happier than ever. 

She had always sat on the opposite end of the couch, away from Jack or if anything, sitting on the other side of her mother. 

But tonight, she had sat down next to him, and on some sort of instinct he isn’t quite sure how to define, he had tossed an arm on top of the couch behind her, his fingers dangling on her shoulder.

She reached for them, pulled them closer. 

Fell into him. 

Curled up next to him. 

Even cracked a smile at his commentary of the nightly news. 

And even better--and he’s still reeling from this, will _always_ be reeling from this, keeping the memory close to his heart for his darkest moments where he thinks he won’t make it out-- _she kissed him on the cheek after saying “goodnight.”_

Diane noticed the shine in his eyes, and kissed the other cheek, saying the three words that both of them had been a bit wary in saying, their hearts both scarred from the damages of misplacing their trust in those took advantage of them.

“I love you, Jack Dalton,” she whispered into his ear, pressing her forehead against his temple. She held a hand on top of his own against his thigh, used the other to ball a fist into his shirt, keeping him anchored to the couch.

He didn’t plan on going anywhere anyway. 

“I love you, Diane Davis,” Jack whispered back, pulling her in closer, showering her with gentle kisses, nuzzling his nose into her’s. The sandwich of hands on his lap disassemble, he places his on top of her’s, gliding it up and down as she giggles in a sultry hum. The very definition of tenderness. 

It was romantic, intimate, and even though he didn’t have anything to put on her finger, he found that more words were boiling on the tip of his tongue, asking to solidify their bond, to give her hand to him as he offered his to her. 

Words that would arrange themselves in a particular way to make a _vow,_ and ask a question if she would do the same. 

He’s had the feeling for a while now, that she would say yes, if he asked. 

But the doorbell rings, and now Jack sits alone, forming a plan to do it in a more...extravagant way. After all, a question like this one is certainly not one to just be spoken as if he were asking about the weather, no, it demands more attention than that. More importance. 

He needs to make a speech, reveal his heart to her in a way she’s never seen before, and hope that she accepts that side of him, too. The side she hasn’t seen yet. 

But she might see it soon enough.

“Who is it, hon?” he calls out, he had already been feeling the pulsing ghost of Riley still curled up under his left arm, now he feels the void Diane left on his right, and he’s growing colder, lonelier. Yet he’s still vegetative, still sore from the work day and activities of the night. He cranes his neck over the back of the cushion behind him, and sees the door, just barely open--Diane’s shrinking into herself, her hands fumbling behind her, one gripping the door frame, the other gripping the door, as if she wanted to just fall back into the house, shut the door behind her, but seems to have a reason not to--that the situation she’s facing would escalate into a more...upsetting scenario. 

The very definition of discomfort. 

“Please, Elwood, just go home--” He hears her hiss harshly. Even when Riley does whatever young, dumb preteens do to get on their mother’s nerves, he’s never heard such hostility in her tone before.

“She’s my daughter! Why can’t I see her?” a loud, slurring voice belches, coming from the swaying scum that holds Diane captive. 

“It’s not your weekend, and you’re drunk--” Diane seems to muster up some courage, springs up from her slouch and shuts the door behind her. Jack almost smiles, almost feels sorry for the drunk on the doorstep. She hasn’t told him much about her ex (and Riley’s father), but has told him enough to know that he’s just a waste of time and space, not worth anybody’s attention. 

Except his own, when he hears a _thump_ against the door. 

A jolt of energy shakes his body, he leaps from the couch and heads towards the door, one hand hovering over his thigh where he normally stores his holster, and the other reaching into his back pockets, feeling for the pocket knife he doesn’t leave the house without. 

As he approaches, he hears the indistinguishable words get louder, voices raising and he shoots a glance into the dark hallway. There’s no light under Riley’s door, perhaps she’s asleep. 

He hopes she stays that way. 

The voices seem to lower again once his hand grabs onto the door knob. He hears retreating footsteps on the wooden porch. He peers through the peephole, his anxiety waning into just guilty curiosity--Diane already doesn't know that he’s a spy in general, and she probably wouldn’t take to kindly to him spying on _her._

But when Elwood’s drunken words scream in Diane’s face in a sudden outburst of primal rage and he grabs her arm and pulls her towards him so roughly that she nearly falls down the stairs, Jack decides that perhaps it’s time for him to step in. 

“Let--go--!” Diane cries out, as she pushes against the man, wrestling his grip off of her arm, but then he just moves to her hair--

“Hey!” Jack barks, swinging open the door. “What’s up, man?” 

He can feel his bones shake and seethe but he displays the callous calm that he’s used to showing to douchebags far worse than this one--stick him in an interrogation room with the man, he wouldn’t last two seconds with Jack. 

But Elwood doesn’t see that, just sees the threat to his abusive power-play on the woman he “claims” that he loves. 

“Who’s this? Why is he in our home?” Elwood growls, shaking Diane’s head. 

_“This,”_ Jack gestures to himself grandly with a hand, puffing his chest and flaring his nostrils. “Is the guy who’s gonna give you one chance to let Diane go, leave, and never come back.” 

“Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Jack nods, approaching the couple on the stairs slowly. He hates that he thinks like this, but feels the same bravado he holds during hostage negotiations. The illusion of control, when he knows the real power is held by the hostage-taker. 

Yet this feels somehow harder than any negotiation he’s been in before. It’s like he’s blindfolded. Or his hands are tied behind his back. Or he’s unable to say the things he _really_ wants to say, the words that would put an end to this whole affair and he can selfishly return to the comforts shared between him and the woman he _loves._

The very definition of helpless.

But he won’t let Elwood see that. Can’t let him see that. He has enough power as it is, holding Diane in his arms from behind, taunting, _daring_ Jack to make a move, not knowing that if he did, he would regret it for the rest of his life. 

Really, Jack’s doing the man a favor. 

“Let her go,” he demands calmly. 

“I love her, you know. She married _me,_ you-you’re just some dumb fling--” Elwood slurs, pointing an accusing finger at Jack. His heart sinks, suddenly sent into a shuttering, high speed flashback of all of the other women that yes, were indeed just fleeting flings for no purpose other than a quick boost to keep him going during all of his other missions, but this...this is different. 

This is _real._

“I’m not going to ask again--” Jack chuckles, with absolutely no trace of humor in his voice, before in one swift movement, he punches Elwood’s face, sending him down the small flight of stairs and pulls Diane up as gently as he can on her most likely bruised arm. He lets out a few exhaling puffs, watching as Elwood covers his face, rocking on the ground with a loud groan. 

“She’s _mine!”_ Elwood shouts as Jack directs his attention to Diane, patting her hair down, whispering soft affirmations to soothe her as he guides her closer to the door, closer to her home, to _safety._ “She’s my wife! And that’s _my_ daughter in there!” 

“Stay here,” he whispers to Diane, who’s grabbing at his shoulder, whispering “no, no, no, no,” and shaking her head, her eyes pleading with him but for the first time in their relationship, he doesn’t listen to her. 

He saunters down the stairs, feeling his blood boil over so intensely that sweat begins to drip out of a few pores of his skin, veins popping out of his neck as he grits his teeth together, choosing his words in such a way that will most definitely haunt the man for the rest of his life--

“You lost the rights to both of their hearts when you dared to lay a _finger_ on the most beautiful woman in the world. You are nothing but a worthless piece of shit and don’t deserve either of them. Get the fuck out of here, and don’t let me _ever_ see you within fifty--no, _a hundred_ feet of this household. Actually, no, I don’t even want to see you in the same state, the same _continent_ as them, you understand me?”

“Or what?” Elwood goads him with a cough. Jack pulls him up by the collar, registering the sounds of his cracking knuckles, the continuing sniffling pleas from Diane, the hot and heavy breath from both men dripping in testosterone. 

“Or I’ll put you in a hole so deep that your drunk ass will never be able to crawl out of it,” Jack hisses in a husky whisper, loud but low enough so that Diane won’t hear, before dropping Elwood down forcefully and kicking his feet. “Go.” 

Jack turns and walks back towards Diane, who seems to be calming, her eyes shining with a grateful pride that hides behind her despairing frown. 

Jack has one foot on the staircase, when the drunk opens his literal fat mouth again.

“S-so what, you’re gonna bury me in tile samples? You’re not even a real man, just pretend to be one while you help women choose their favorite color while the _real_ men are hard at work, serving this country and providing everything for their family!” 

What comes next is a blur of shouts and screams. Blood and guts. Pleas and profanity. Pain and satisfaction. A rising level of rage he’s not felt in far too long of a time, sending his body into an auto-pilot as his mind retreats back into the memories of the lifetime before this one, where his conditioning and training was morphing into the domestic nature, a loving nature. Shedding his skin from young, dumb kid who just happened to be good at fighting and (sometimes) listened to orders to the older, wiser man that was maturing from the mistakes he’s made in the past. 

An honorable man, like his father. 

But he’ll never be that. 

He’s just the monster that is just _tearing_ into Elwood, pounding every inch of flesh until it turns purple. Squeezing the life out of his neck. Kicking him in the parts that hurt a man the most. He doesn’t go as far to snuff it out entirely, but he grips the very essence of this man called Elwood within the vice grip of his fingers. 

The very definition of unhinged. 

But he doesn’t think his behavior to be anything other than what a man like Elwood deserves. He’s simply acting as judge, jury and executioner, bestowing the same pain to him that he had inflicted on Diane, punishment for his abuse--but it wouldn’t be enough, he could never do enough to pay for his sins.

He doesn’t really care about that. 

Rather, what he’s upset about is that Diane is the one to see this, see him for what he truly is, his soul completely, utterly exposed for her to act upon it.

The one part of him he was planning on keeping to himself _forever._

“Jack, please, just stop!” she cries out, and it’s those four words that make up his mind, set him on a new path, destroying the idea of Jack Dalton, the family man, who’s greatest asset is his large heart and sense of respect for women that most men don’t seem to have. His role, his identity is instead reaffirmed as Jack Dalton, the deadly CIA agent who’s greatest asset is his pure, unadulterated brute force.

No longer the father figure or almost-husband. He’s forever the protector. 

The punisher.

Except not half as awesome as the one in the comics. 

* * *

Riley knew it was too good to be true. 

_Jack_ was too good to be true. 

Her relationship with her biological father had soured and ripened over the years, a constant conflict of the heart as she would see him butter her up, showering her with affection and gifts and all the shared laughter and compliments and affirmations that she would always be loved, only to then watch him berate her mother. Yell at her. Hit her. Toss her around like she was _nothing._ Make her feel just as small and helpless but also dependent upon him because for years, her jobs were unstable and his weren’t. He provided for them, a fact he would loudly remind them of at least three times a night. 

Eventually her mother landed a job that made her feel a little more powerful, not as drained as all the others did.

Eventually her mother found the strength in herself to kick him out…

But only after a near miss, in which Elwood almost hit Riley. 

It broke Riley’s heart, but she understood. She had to. Because it hurt less to think of her father as one of the monsters in her stories rather than a man who would abuse alcohol, and then his wife, and then _her_ in that order. It hurt less to think of a father as simply someone who _owned_ his wife and children, and treated them as nothing but possessions to cater to whatever whim he fancied rather than thinking of what a father _should_ be, and how she didn’t have it.

So as far as she was concerned, she didn’t have a father. Never did, and never felt the desire to have one. 

And that was okay, she met a few fellow kids at school that didn’t have fathers either, so she didn’t feel alone in that.

And then Jack walked in, treated her with the same lenient love, the same goofiness, cracking jokes and making her laugh--except she didn’t, because she knew what was going on. He was just playing a game with her heart, with her mother’s heart, before he would steal it and ruin it, just as her real father did. 

But to her surprise, and reluctant delight, Jack ended up becoming a _real_ father to her. 

Teaching her.

Guiding her.

Not putting up with her bullshit--though that took time for muster up the courage to do, he seemed to sense that he was always walking on eggshells around her. A part of her had respected that, but appreciated when he did put his foot down, but not in a threatening, malicious way. 

Even when she messed up, he _understood._ He cared. He _loved_ her. 

And she was just beginning to think that she loved him back. 

That is, until, she wakes up from the most pleasant dream she had--one where Jack had always been there, right from the start, that she had an easier childhood, with plenty of friends and smiles and the love that he had always shown her through the peppered samples of their retroactively defined _short_ time together. 

In years to come, the dreams would become nothing but faded polaroids embedded on the tile samples he would jokingly wear around his neck to make her and Diane laugh.

She hears shouting, which--while not uncommon in her household, it had gotten a lot less frequent since Jack moved in and her father stopped coming around. That isn’t what gets her out of bed, though.

She hears her mother shouting, _screaming,_ for _Jack_ to “stop.” 

Jack’s shouting back, vile profanities and threats and at first, she thinks they’re directed at her mother. She can feel the trickle of cracks spreading through her body, she curls herself over in an attempt to keep herself together as the realization sinks in that yes, she was right, Jack was no better than her father, or any other man for that matter.

But once the shouting subsides to a hushed conversation and her body overheats, she tosses the blanket over onto the floor and cautiously approaches the edge of the window, slipping her fingers between the blinds to peek through.

And what she sees makes her feel more guilty than ever, for thinking that Jack would ever hurt her mother.

She’s only able to recognize Elwood’s presence by the dented car that’s parked off center in the driveway, veering off into the front yard. She watches as Jack drags the man towards his own car, tossing him in the trunk and driving off. 

She’s so giddy by the idea that Jack has finally conquered the monster that is her father, that she wants to cry. Wants to cheer. Wants to run after Jack with her fists in the air, shout all the same profanities that she heard her scream at her father, echo the sentiment of disapproval of his waste of a life. 

But her mother doesn’t seem as happy about the ordeal. Not even relieved. She falls to the floor of the porch, on top of the first stair and hunches over. Her body vibrates, and through the layer of glass separating them, Riley can just barely hear the stream of sobs, the same sobs she heard before…

When she kicked Elwood out. 

Riley runs out of her room and onto the porch, immediately wrapping herself around her mother, who falls into her. 

“Are you okay?” is the first question she asks. 

Her mother nods.

“Did Jack do anything to you?” is the second.

She’s grateful that her mother shakes her head.

“Is he coming back?” is the third and final question she asks. 

Her mother doesn’t have an answer. 

Riley doesn’t press for one, and allows her own tears to fall and melt with her mother’s on the precipice of their damaged homestead. 

She mourns a lot of things as she cries for the rest of that night, her childhood most of all. She has to grow up fast, because she’s far too young to understand how to put the pieces of a broken heart back together again, and right now that’s what her mother needs.

And that’s what _she_ needs, too.

* * *

He finishes the mission that really, could have ended almost as soon as it started.

But he got distracted, and even more so after “taking care” of Elwood, and it cost him more than just the mission, but his job entirely, after a long debriefing session with his boss, Matilda Webber.

Another woman he loved and left her heart dangling in the air, not wanting to drag it down as his own heart crashed and burned.

His bags packed, an envelope filled with his severance package and discharge papers in his hand, he’s never felt so alone in his life, sunk into the bed-bug infested bed of the stingy motel that might as well become his new home, a shithole befitting of his failure. 

His mouth feels dry, there’s not enough alcohol to satisfy him. He steps over the bottles to get to the bathroom, lean over the counter with shaking arms, too broken and lost to do anything but look inward, find the part of him strong enough to keep going.

He looks at himself in the mirror, having shaved off the careless growth on top of his head of soft hair that Diane used to run her fingers through, that Riley would tug when he gave her piggyback rides. 

He looks at the shell of a man who doesn’t know what to do. 

And sets him straight. 

“You lost the rights to both of their hearts when you dared to lay a _finger_ on the most beautiful woman in the world,” he echoes back to himself. His eyes start to water as he thinks of Diane, thinks of her face, her smile, her eyes, her lips.

She was too good for him.

“You are nothing but a worthless piece of shit and don’t deserve either of them,” he continues, his voice daring to crack, but it’s a harsh truth he needs to hear. There was a challenge, but an equal reward in winning those two women over--more so with Riley, who didn’t seem eager to get her heart broken again by the man who fully understood he could never actually replace her piece of shit father--who he was no better than, apparently.

She was too good for him, too. 

“Get the fuck out of here, and don’t let me _ever_ see you within fifty--no, _a hundred_ feet of this household.”

He realizes the motel he chose is just around the block from their neighborhood.

“Actually, no, I don’t even want to see you in the same state, the same _continent_ as them, you understand me?”

With no job, no home, no sense of purpose in his life, he decides to exile himself back to the sandbox he once ran around with his Delta squadron, except this time, alone. Serving his penance by protecting naive, ungrateful little bomb nerds and ensuring they get back safely to the home, to the family that he will never have. 

The very definition of an Overwatch.


End file.
